French MPs adopt bill on 'foreign interference'... written by French intelligence services

Clara Bauer-Babef
euractiv.com
Thu, 28 Mar 2024 07:12 UTC

Comment: This happened in late March this year. Since then, it is currently in the process of being 'amended' by the country's intelligence services, no doubt in their peculiar interests...

© EPA-EFE/Yoan Valat

The text, which was largely adopted in plenary on Wednesday, with only France Insoumise (LFI) voting against and the Gauche Démocratique et Républicaine (GDR) abstaining, consists of four articles.

Lawmakers in the French National Assembly on Wednesday backed a bill proposed by President Emmanuel Macron's Renaissance party to combat foreign interference by a large majority of 171 votes to 25.

"What is at stake is the protection of our sovereignty, our democratic and liberal values, and the protection of the nation's interests", said Sacha Houlié, Renaissance chairman of the French Law Commission and rapporteur for the bill, as he opened the debate on Tuesday.

Comment: Yes indeed, specifically their values, as opposed to the values of the majority of French people.

The text, which was largely adopted in plenary on Wednesday, with only France Insoumise (LFI) voting against and the Gauche Démocratique et Républicaine (GDR) abstaining, consists of four articles.

In particular, it provides for a four-year trial, allowing the intelligence services to use algorithmic surveillance techniques currently reserved exclusively for the fight against terrorism.

Comment: As we predicted at the time the US Congress passed the PATRIOT Act in 2001, the political justification of 'fighting terrorism' was ultimately going to end up as a means of fighting against you.

This measure was initially strongly criticised by the left-wing parties, who feared possible repercussions on individual freedoms.

Comment: And where is Le Pen's Rassemblement National ('far-right') party on this issue?

"The debates in the National Assembly have made it possible to clarify the text, which limits the use of algorithms to cases of foreign interference and the fight against terrorism", ecologist MP Jérémie Iordanoff told Euractiv.

The text also provides for creating a register of "interest representatives acting on behalf of a foreign principal" controlled by the High Authority for Transparency in Public Life (HATVP).

This will include lobbyists, communicators, and fundraisers who act on behalf of governments, state-controlled companies, and foreign political parties.

The bill is based on a report published in November by the Parliamentary Delegation for Intelligence (DPR), which found that the available tools are "effective" but "sometimes insufficient given the intensification of the threat."

It will now be examined by the Senate in May.

Comment: As we've seen with The Twitter Files, anything the intelligence services don't like is 'foreign interference'.

The only way in which such a law would have applicable usefulness (in the genuine national interest) is by targeting the thousands of Western - namely American, EU and British - 'NGOs' and think-tanks flooding the country with disinformation and political interference.

But in the build-up to the National Assembly adopting this law, French media reportedly breathlessly - based on 'amazing discoveries' made by French intelligence, in cooperation with Anglo-American intelligence, naturally - about the recent discovery of 'Chinese spies' and 'Russian interference' in France, making clear that they intend to follow the pattern we've seen elsewhere in the West of targeting domestic dissent which the authorities will frame as 'foreign (namely, non-Western) interference'.

So this is really a law against free speech and a means, the political class hopes, of suppressing domestic dissent. Meanwhile Paris, like all other NATO/Western regimes, is admonishing Tbilisi for passing its 'foreign interference law'... because that one targets the actual sources of foreign interference: Western intelligence agencies acting para-legally through 'NGO' proxies!